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MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 
OF “THE BOOK” 


par THE— 
REV. WM. MARVIN LANGDON, M. A. (Princeton) 
South Orange, New Jersey. 


Author Of 
Some Merits of the American Standard Bible, and the 
Peculiar Case of Stanley Dodd & Co. vs. James King. 


Asheville, North Carolina. 
1924 


If you receive this pamphlet, kindly read it, 
and criticise, review, circulate, or return it, 
or remit 50 cents to 
Wm. M. Langdon, West Asheville, N. C. 
Return-postage, herewith. 


Copies may be bought from the author or from other 


booksellers. 


v9 


West Asheville, N. C., 26th August, 1924. 








Dedicated to H. M. LYDENBURG, 
New York Public Library. 


FOUR FOREWORDS 


TO PROFESSIONAL AND LAY READERS 
TO PROFESSIONALS 


To the kindly Scholar: The indication of errors in this 
pamphlet will be appreciated, and constructive criti- 
cisms will be gratefully received. 


To the Editor or Publisher: If anyone thinks a part or - 
the whole of the pamphlet worth reprinting or review- 
ing, his kindness will be recompensed, if possible. 


TO THE LAITY 


To the sentimental Reader: One who is more sensitive 
than sensible is cautioned to shun the shock that the 
reading of this pamphlet might occasion. Most people 
are excessively conservative, and are pained by the sug- 
gestion of change. So, if emotion overpowers the rea- 
son, let ignorance continue to be bliss, leave the follow- 
ing pages unread, and pass the pamphlet on to some 
more curious mind. 


To the sensible Reader: Any reader who approves of 
the pamphlet, and is appreciative and enthusiastic 
enough to wish to aid in its circulation, and in the pro- 
motion of English Bible translation, will be heartily 
welcomed as a co-operator. 


Mishaps in the Making of 
“The Book” 


“The book? What book?” Why, the Book of all books; 
yet the Book whose source and author are disputed. Some 
say it came from God; others say it originated with men. 
But all admit—unless they are utterly thoughtless—that 
the Bible came thru men. Men are fallible, tho God is not; 
men make mistakes; God permits them, altho His provi- 
dence has marvelously guarded His Book from the large 
proportion of error that is found in all other ancient works. 

Can man know God? Christ said: “No one knows the 
Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son reveals Him.” 
-Are the Living Word and the Written Word the only reve- 
lations of God? Certainly not; the Bible itself tells us that 
nature reveals God, and that God revealed Himself in the 
Garden of Eden. He walked and talked with Adam and 
Eve. Enoch walked with Him, and God spoke to Noah, to 
Abraham, and to his descendants down to the time of Moses. 
But with Moses the written revelation began. Here again 
we find two views, and with the conservative view rather 
than the rationalistic we are now concerned. There is a 
Mohammedan legend that God provided Adam with writing 
materials and taught him how to write, as well as how to 
talk! Tho the possibility of writing even in Moses’ day has 
been doubted, in this case the objectors have been thor- 
cughly answered. The development of the art of writing 
has been traced from the pictures of the cave men thru 
the hieroglyphs of the Egyptians, the alphabet of the Phoe- 
nicians, the Hebrews’ habit of writing consonants straight 
along with no vowels between; the Greek customs of run- 
ning words together with no spaces between, of indiffer- 
ently dividing the last word of the line, and of abbreviat- 
ing some common words; traced thru the introduction of 
capitals and punctuation, with signs to express emotion; 
the marshalling of sentences in paragraphs; the division of 
the matter into chapters, sections, cantos and books, down 
to the emphatic display of modern advertising and the artis- 
tic and vivifying printing of poetry and drama. There are 
only three occasions on which the Bible represents its 
divine Author as Himself writing. The first of these occa- 
sions was the promulgation of the Law on Mount Sinai; 
and this brings us to the consideration of THE NAME. 


4 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


THE NAME. 


“The name? What name?” Why, the unique Name of the 
unique person of the unique Book; the Ineffable Name; 
and, later, the Lost Name. The unique Person is not the 
petty “parson” of the village or community. He is The Per- 
son of the universe. Now we may know a person without 
knowing his name. Some may be surprised to hear that the 
question has been raised whether God has a name. But in 
the early Christian centuries the negative of this question 
was stoutly maintained. Man cannot know God fully; can 
he then name God? Adam named the animals, but did he 
name God? Justin Martyr wrote: “No one can give a name 
to the ineffable God; and if anyone dare to say that He 
has a name, he raves in hopeless madness.” Eve knew and 
used the name ‘“Jehovah;” so did the patriarchs. And to 
Moses the name was more fully explained. As man could 
neither name nor understand God, God must have revealed 
Himself, as the Scripture says, thus evidencing its inspira- 
tion. 


We are familiar with the lists of 250 names and titles of 
God and of Christ. But we should note that the word 
“name” is used in ways both :strict and loose. Here we shall 
use the word more strictly than it is commonly used. Strict- 
ly speaking we know only three names of God: Jehovah, 
Jah, and Jesus. In the ordinary English Bible ‘Jehovah’ 
first appears in the phrase “Jehovah Jireh,” Gen. 22:14, 
where the King James committee evidently thought it would 
not do to substitute ‘‘Lord”’ for God’s name. But if we 
read the original, or a corrected instead of a corrupted 
translation, we find this name in the combination form 
‘Jehovah God,” in the second chapter of Genesis. The Cre- 
ator is called Elohim in the first chapter of Genesis. The 
covenant-making God is called Jehovah Elohim in the sec- 
ond portion of Genesis. In the 4th chapter the simple “Je- 
hovah” is used of Him. The combination “Lord Jehovah” 
occurs in 15:2; “God Most High” in 14:18-22; and “God 
Almighty” in Gen. 17:1. 7 , 

But none of these except “Jehovah” is a name of God; 
the others are titles, epithets, descriptive terms. The com- 
bination of a noun with an adjective does not produce a 
name. The names “Jehovah” and “Jah” are unique; no 
other person in the universe has these names, altho they 
are found as elements of many compound names. But “there 
are lords many and gods many.” “Lord” and “god” are 
common nouns; “lord” is used also as a title. But the title 
“Jord” is not distinctive like the name “Jehovah;” it is 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 5 


ambiguous. It may be used of all sorts of persons, as the 
god Baal, my lord Cesar, my lord Bishop, the lord mayor, 
Lord Dundreary, etc. “Lord” is not a name any more than 
“Mr.,” “Dr.,” “Bishop,” “King,” are names. We do not 
speak of the “name Mr.,”’ tho we do speak of the “name 
King,” and we say ‘Mr. James King.” In these cases the 
title “King” has by frequent usage come to be a proper 
name. And so we use “Lord” as a name when we speak of. 
“John Lord;” “Bishop” as a name when we speak of ‘‘Grace 
Bishop.” But in all other cases these words are only titles. 

So the unwarranted substitution of “Lord” for “Jeho- 
vah” thousands of times in the Old Testament cannot really 
make “Lord” a name of God. ‘‘Lord’” means ruler and 
owner, the master of slaves. And of course such God is; 
our Creator owns us, and we are His slaves. But God did 
not remind the Jews of this nearly seven thousand times 
under the Old Covenant; He used His title ‘Lord’ only 
about three hundred times. In the other instances He used 
His covenant name, the name He gave to Moses when He 
came down to deliver His people from a cruel bondage. 
“Jehovah” suggests the considerate and condescending God 
who has come to rescue His people. It does imply His abso- 
lute deity, His eternal self-existence, His infinite majesty ; 
but it suggests His fidelity and helpfulness also. He is the 
Becoming One or self-revealer, the Coming One for whom 
His suffering people are waiting. Likewise “god” is a com- 
mon noun, and is used of Ashtoreth, Molech and Beelzebub, 
of Jupiter, Venus and Pluto, and millions of other gods. 
It is used in the Old Testament of the true God over two 
thousand times; and in the versions it was substituted, 
some hundreds of times, for “Jehovah” in the original. But 
the general term for the deity whom we worship cannot 
possibly take the place of the name of our God. 

We have found the name “Jehovah” in the book of Gene- 
sis. In the account of the call of Moses (Ex. chs. 3 and 6) 
God says that His name was not understood by the fathers, 
who knew Him rather as the powerful God who richly sup- 
plied their needs. So God explained His name to Moses as 
meaning the Absolute One, essentially existing and pro- 
gressively unfolding Himself to man, the Friend of His 
people, who was always coming for their deliverance. The 
great “I Am” said to Moses: Jehovah “is my name for- 
ever; it is my memorial to all generations.’”’ Here again 
the King James committee were compelled to restore “Je- 
hovah” as Moses wrote it; and on three other occasions 
likewise, in Exodus, Judges and the Psalms, and in two 
passages in Isaiah. God inspired men to write it throughout 


6 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


the Old Testament, but He Himself wrote it with His 
finger on tables of stone, as related in Ex. 24:12; 31:18; 
and 32:16. In His law Jehovah cautioned Israel not to use 
His name lightly (Ex. 20:7; Lev. 18:21,), and He coupled 
profaning the name of God with the sin of profaning their 
children—of sacrificing them in the fire to the “King Idol,” 
Molech. This passage reads, in Fenton’s version: “You 
shall not give your seed to pass to Molok: and thus defile the 
name of your God.” If this be correct, it would have de- 
prived the Jews of this proof text for discarding Jehovah’s 
name. For it represents child-sacrifice as bringing dis- 
honor to God, instead of prohibiting the profanation of 
God’s name. The devil took occasion of these prohibitions 
to pervert man’s understanding of God’s words, and to 
bring about the first great mishap in the transmission of 
God’s message. 


The Jews have herein given us an illustration of the in- 
sufficiency of a good motive; for the good motive may be 


accompanied by a bad deed, and bring forth evil conse- 
quences. The Jews illustrate also how an error at its origin 
may be of comparatively smal] importance, but may later 
develop to dangerous dimensions. The first step in this de- 
velopment may have been this: Satan, in his unresting op- 
position to God’s plan, inspired some unknown Jew, of an. 
unknown age, to conceive that, since God’s name must not 
be profanely pronounced, it was therefore best to avoid 
the risk of this frivolity by eschewing the utterance of the 
name altogether. (2) This scribe or priest imbued his fel- 
low scribes with his mistaken scruples. He suggested that 
instead of reading “Yahweh” in the Scriptures over six 
thousand times, they substitute “Adonai.” But at Gen. 15:2 
and hundreds of other points they found the combination 
“Adonai Yahweh.” Their difficulties were multiplying, as 
difficulties always will, when one leaves the straight and 
narrow path of right and truth. They could not read ‘‘Ado- 
nai Adonai;” so they substituted “Elohim” for ‘‘Yahweh” 
and read “Adonai Elohim,” “Lord God.” (8) The Jewish 
officials communicated their excessive reverence to the 
whole nation. (4) Many centuries after Moses the supersti- 
tion became established. The only time the name could be 
uttered was when the high priest entered the Holy of 
Holies on the annual Day of Atonement. We can hardly see 
how the custom could have been settled before the comple- 
tion of the Old Testament writings. For if it was dangerous 
to utter the name, why was it not equal sacrilege to write 
it? But history gives no clue. to the dates. 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 7 


(5) The fifth step was tampering with the sacred writ- 
ings. The scribes, as they copied their rolls, generally wrote 
YHWH, but there were 134 exceptions to this rule. (Bul- 
linger and Ginsberg). In these cases the scribes allowed 
their superstition about the name to exceed their reverence 
for the holy book, and they removed YHWH bodily from 
the text and substituted the consonants of Adonai. In Gen. 
18:22 they even reversed the positions of Jehovah and 
Abraham, where the original text read: ‘Jehovah stood 
before Abraham;”’’ for they thought this statement deroga- 
tory to the divine dignity! (6) “Adonai” was now so fully 
recognized that when the Hebrew YHWH was translated 
into Greek by the Septuagint, a few centuries before Christ, 
it appeared as “kurios,” Lord. (7) The Jews of Palestine 
spoke Aramaic, but many of them used the Greek Septua- 
gint as well as the Hebrew Old Testament. The Septuagint 
was probably used by the Lord himself and his apostles and 
by the writers of the New Testament. Hence the Aramaic 
and-the Greek for “Lord” came to the minds, lips and pens 
of these Jews instead of the significant name ‘“‘Yahweh.”’ 
When Mary, who was to be the mother of Jesus, burst into 
her song of joy, she probably used Aramaic, and said: “My 
heart exalts Adonai.” Whether in her heart she thought of 
“Yahweh” as being thus replaced because the latter name 
was too awful to utter, we cannot say. But were it not for 
the vain thought of the unknown Jew of centuries before, 
she would have used “Yahweh” as Hannah did when she 
uttered the song from which Mary quoted. Mary’s song 
was repeated and became a classic, and Saint Luke learned 
it; and he wrote in Greek: “My heart exalts ton kurion,” 
the Lord. 

As to the custom of our Lord we have no statement. 
We cannot say that he never used ““Yahweh,” or say that 
he never told anyone that it should be used reverently 
instead of the ‘“‘kurios’” that the Septuagint scholars had 
substituted. But it seems probable that he conformed to 
the custom of his people, and did not consider it desirable 
to raise an issue on a point on which they were so violently 
prejudiced. The important issues of the Sabbath and of his 
divinity and Messiahship were quite sufficient without dis- 
tracting their attention by introducing the question as to 
the name of God. As Rotherham says: The Messiah “was 
not a scribe or literary critic; his mission was much high- 
er. He had to plead his Messiahship at the bar of the Scrip- 
tures as then current, and any criticism by him of the na- 
tion’s Sacred Documents might have placed a needless ob- 
stacle in the people’s path.” If he did not read before the 


8 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


jealous Nazarenes: “The Spirit of Jehovah is upon me,” 
etc., nor remind the bloodthirsty officials that David said: 
“Jehovah has said unto my lord,” etc., he certainly knew 
what the prophet and the Psalmist wrote. Moreover, we 
are told that many in his time spoke of God as “‘the Father;” 
and Jesus emphasized this relationship and constantly re- 
ferred to God as his Father and the Father of his hearers. 
And as the covenant name “Jehovah” had brought God 
nearer than ‘‘Lord” to the Israelites, so the term “Father” 
brought Him nearer to the Jews and to humanity than 
“Jehovah” would; and it expressed God’s marvelous conde- 
scension and kindness. 

A generation after the resurrection, when the New Tes- 
tament writers were recording the life of our Jord, and 
writing “kurios’” in Greek, they probably thought of ‘“ku- 
rios”’ as meaning “Jehovah,” and knew that their readers 
would so think of it. But this consciousness faded away, 
and Gentiles who knew not Jewish history and literature 
would understand “kurios’” only in the sense familiar to 
them—of ‘“‘lord.’”’ A rather interesting instance of the mis- 
leading effect of substituting “Lord” is found in the Greek 
writer Hermogenes, of the second century, A. D. He speaks 
of the “name God” being used in the first of Genesis, and 
argues from-the combination “Lord God,” in the second 
portion, that God became Lord only after the creation of 
things, especially of man, when He had something to lord 
it over. His whole argument is wrecked on the rocks, be- 
cause in reality “Lord” does not appear in this second por- 
tion of Genesis. But thanks to a meddlesome Jew, some 
half a dozen centuries earlier than Hermogenes, the name 
“Jehovah” had already been forgotten by many, and Her- 
mogenes supposed that Moses had actually written ‘Lord 
God” instead of “Jehovah God’?! Had Hermogenes known 
the truth he would never have educed his argument. And 
since Hermogenes was in error in speaking of the “name 
God,” he had, tho he did not know it, a nameless God. 

(8) The “‘kurios,”’ substituted in the Old Testament, and 
written as an original in the New Testament, was naturally 
translated into other languages by their word for “Lord.” 
Perhaps even in the first century “Jehovah” appeared in 
Latin as “Dominus.” Certainly ‘‘Dominus” was used in the 
Latin versions, and since Jerome it has stood in the Vulgate 
with the authorization of the Roman Catholic church. (9) 
By the middle of the first Christian millennium the pro- 
nunciation of Hebrew generally was being forgotten by the 
mass of readers, and so the rabbis found it necessary to 
add vowels, below or above the consonants, throughout the 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 9 





Old Testament text. But coming to the consonants of 
YHWH, they added not its proper vowels, but those of 
adonai or elohim, as these were the words pronounced by 
the reader. After the destruction of the temple there was 
no Holy of Holies for the annual entrance of the high 
priest, and no annual pronunciation of the name. Since the 
name was not pronounced, as the centuries passed, its pro- 
nunciation and complete form were forgotten. 

(10) A millennium later, at the beginning of the six- 
teenth century, writers who were not influenced by the 
Jewish superstition tried to reproduce the sacred name, and 
combined its consonants, Y, H, W, H, with e, o, a, the 
vowels of adonai, thus forming a hybrid word. We find va- 
ried spellings of the name in English, the I and J and the 
v and v being sometimes interchanged. As far as we can 
learn it was not used by Wycliff, adonay appearing in his 
manuscript; and when this was printed, centuries later, we 
find “The Lord seeth” in Gen. 22:14. In Tindale’s Exodus, 
chs. 6 and 17, we find Jehouah. In the Matthew and Taver- 
ner Bibles Jehouah occurs a third time—in Judges. In the 
Great and the Bishops’ Bibles, it occurs twice—Iehouah in 
Ex. 6 and Iehoua in Ps. 83. The Genevan divines advanced 
to five times;.and the King James savants added the two 
occurrences in Isaiah. The Douay used adonay only in Ex. 
6:3. But in over 6,800 cases the King James committee used 
“Lord ;” while other versions used its equivalent perhaps in 
every instance; as senor, in Italian, signor, in Spanish, herr 
in German, etc. The French use “L’Eternel.”” Some modern 
English translators pursue diverse and devious paths. Drs. 
George R. Noyes (1866), John E. McFadyen, and Charles 
F. Kent use sometimes “Jehovah” and sometimes “Lord.” 
They argue that “Jehovah” is now unfamiliar; that it 
was the name of a tribal god, and “Lord” is applica- 
ble to the God of all nations; but this point may be 
pressed too far. McFadyen argues also that the Jews them- 
selves, in the second and third books of the Psalter, re- 
placed the “Yahweh” of their earlier editions with ‘‘God” 
in later copies. Dr. James Moffatt, in his forthcoming Old 
Testament, intends to write “The Eternal;” tho he does not 
claim that it is satisfactory. The Rev. E. Hampden-Cook, 
editor of the Weymouth Testament, who is anxious to pro- 
duce a modern Old Testament, plans to use “The Most 
High.” 3 

The Fenton Old Testament, which has been for two 
decades the only complete one in modern English, is very 
variegated. It starts with “the EVER-LIVING” in capitals, 
but soon slides into “LORD” in capitals: Gen. 3:22; 18:1; 


10 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


but in verse 13 it uses the lower case letters, and explains 
“Yahweh” as a “Divine Messenger”! At Ex. 4:24 it falls 
to “Chieftain,” explained in a long footnote of dubious 
rationality! At Ex. 6:3 a footnote says: “Johvah is first 
used here as a Divine name.” In Jud. 6:14 “Yahweh” be- 
comes ‘‘Noble Man’”—‘“evidently not the Creator’! In the 
arrangement of Ex. 20:2 it fortunately agrees with the 
commentators who make this verse part of the first com- 
mandment and find Jehovah’s signature at the beginning 
and end of the first table. At Ex. 34:5 it uses “Jehovah ;” 
and in the next verse, when Jehovah solemnly proclaims 
His name: “Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful,” etc., it 
shortens the second “Jehovah” to “LIVING.” In a score of 
passages in the rest of the Pentateuch, it employs ‘Jeho- 
vah.” In the historical books “‘Ever-Living’” seems’ more 
common than in the prophetical, where “Lord” is often 
found. The variety in Isaiah is especially profuse: we have 
“Life-Giving:” 17:6; “still LIVING:” 43:3; but in verse 15, 
“STILL LIVING’! in numerous places simply “THE 
LIFE.” The combination “Lord Jehovah” appears as 
“LORD OF LIFE:” 30:15; as “the PRINCE EVER-LIV- 
ING:” 52:4; as “Th’ ALMIGHTY LIFE:” 50:4 (“‘Jeho- 
vah of Hosts” also appears as “Th’ ALMIGHTY LIFE:” 
48:2); as “the GREAT LORD:” 56:8; as “the MIGHTY 
LORD:” 50:5,7; and very commonly throughout Ezekiel. 
“The name of Jehovah” appears as “THE LIVING POW- 
ER:” Isa. 50:10; as “His LIVING NAME: ” 56:6. In Jere- 
miah 16:21, “my name is Jehovah” is twisted into “My 
NAME is THE ETERNAL.” Fenton thus employs one or 
two dozen different substitutes for “Jehovah,” a bewilder- 
ing variety that shows the translator’s inventive power, 
but only makes the reader dizzy, and sheds no dazzling 
light. Such a treatment of the inspired Word is erratic and 
inconsistent; it is not even a useful paraphrase; far less a 
translation. 

(11) In the authorised version the need of distinguishing 
between “Jehovah” and “‘Lord” was recognized, and “Lord,” 
misrepresenting “Yahweh,” was printed in small capitals, 
while “Lord,” translating ‘‘Adonai” appears several hun- 
dred times in lower case letters. (12) But those who quote 
the Bible are not as careful as those who print it, and they 
constantly neglect this distinction of type. Thus has Jeho- 
vah permitted Satan to drive Him slowly from His Holy 
Book; and today in our hymns and other religious literature 
His original name has been largely lost. We saw that the 
sacred name was written by Jehovah—eight times in the 
first table, if He wrote the commandments as they now 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 11 


read; the name was written, by the Holy Spirit thru sev- 
eral dozen human authors during one millennium nearly 
seven thousand times; and by the Evil Spirit thru thousands 
of men for two millenniums, it has been cast out and vari- 
ously substituted. 


Results of the Substitution. 


We will next note some of the results of this substitution. 
In the common version of the Old Testament we have three 
different English words for one in the original—Jehovah, 
Lord and God; and the English reader, and more especial- 
ly the hearer, cannot tell when the original was “Yahweh’”’ 
and when, ‘‘Adonai” or ‘‘Elohim.”’? When God reveals Him-. 
self to man He subjects Himself to the limitations of human 
speech. And since language is an imperfect medium for 
conveying thought, a perfect revelation is impossible. But 
there is no need of man’s gratuitously making the revela- 
tion defective by his interference. The American revision 
uses “Jehovah” for both “Yah” and “Yahweh.” And if this 
version ought not to distinguish ‘‘Eloah,” “‘Elohim” and 
“El,” some Bible certainly should do so. The notes of the 
Companion and Newberry Bibles fortunately meet this 
need. 


As an illustration of the confusion caused by the Jewish 
meddler, read the 6th of Isaiah to someone. In the A. V. 
“Lord” occurs three times, and “LORD” three times. The 
hearer finds no difference in these six “‘Lords;” only the 
reader sees the distinction in type. But in the American 
revision both reader and hearer know when Isaiah wrote 
“Jehovah” and when he wrote “Lord.” In the 6th of Ezekiel, 
A. V., “Lord”’ occurs eight times—five in capitals, three in 
lower case. In these three cases “Lord” is prefixed to “Jeho- 
vah,” in the A. R. V.; as we combine title and name in the 
phrase “King George.” In the A. V. “LORD” is used five 
times for “Jehovah,” and “GOD” is used three times for 
“Jehovah’—confusion that is foolish as well as false. Eze- 
kiel wrote “Jehovah” eight times in this chapter and ‘‘Lord”’ 
three times. Why misrepresent him and the God who in- 
spired him? In Psalm 110:1 the same thing is true. In the 
A. R. V. the distinction between “Jehovah” and David’s 
“Lord,” the Messiah, is clear. But in the revised New Tes- 
tament, where this verse is quoted four times, the ambiguity 
and obscurity resulting from the Jewish error still persist. 
An explanatory note is called for, which otherwise would 
have been needless. About twenty years after the A. V. was 
issued, we believe, small capitals were introduced into these 
four quotations; but the revisers conscientiously abolished 


12 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING . 


these capitals, and now even the reader of the New Testa- 
ment finds no difference between the two “Lords.” The 
original distinction between the Father and the Son has 
vanished! In seores of instances in the New Testament 
“Lord” appears where “Yahweh” would have been used 
but for the ‘“Mishap”—but for the over-reverent and over- 
zealous Jew who, like Uzzah, undertook to steady the holy 
receptacle that held the Law of Jehovah. 


Even were this additional meaning (‘‘Yahweh’’) not im- 
posed on ‘“‘kurios,” kurios would already have a sufficient 
burden to carry. For it is used not only in the sense of 
divine Lord, but with reference to a human master, and 
also in the ordinary form of civility which we use in “Mr.” 
and “‘Sir.’’ Let us stop to illustrate this by a short story. 
Some men were once sent to procure a mount for their 
teacher, and finding two donkeys they started to unhitch 
them, but the OWNERS remonstrated. On being informed 
that the MASTER needed the ass, objection ceased. As the 
Prophet rode into the national capital, he was acclaimed as 
the King coming in the name of the Lord—JEHOVAH’S 
Anointed. The religious leaders objected to this demonstra- 
tion, and appealed to the would-be Messiah: “MASTER, 
rebuke your disciples!” In their national shrine these lead- 
ers argued against the Pretender. In his replies he spoke of - 
JEHOVAH as the God of the living; he quoted the 110th 
Psalm, as all three synoptists relate, “JEHOVAH said to 
David’s MESSIAH,” ete. Soon after, some Greeks came and 
said to Philip: “SIR, may we have an interview with this 
wonderful prophet?” They did not call him, “Philip,” but 
addressed him politely; as we would say, to a man of the 
name of ‘Phillips—“MR. Phillips.” The evangelist com- 
ments on the unbelief of the Jews, quoting Isaiah: ‘““JEHO- 
VAH! who could believe such a tale? How can our King be 
a sacrifice?” But when the sacrificed Lamb had come to 
life again, John tells how the unbelief of Thomas was turn- 
ed to faith and adoration as he exclaimed: “My LORD and 
my God!” Some years later, Herod, who had martyred one 
of Messiah’s ambassadors, was hailed by fawning Pheni- 
cians as a god; but the Messenger of JEHOVAH smote 
him, because he failed to honor God. In like fashion Roman 
emperors claimed divine honors; Cesar was KURIOS to his 
subjects, and the Christians who refused to worship this 
“God” were martyred! But “kurioi‘’ may be rendered sim- 
ply as “gentlemen ;’’ Goodspeed represents the jailer, scared 
to death by the earthquake, as addressing his prisoners: 
“GENTLEMEN, what must I do to be saved ?” 


The dozen or more words printed above in capitals are 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 13 


selected from many instances that show the varied uses of 
the word “kurios.” In the mouth of friends and foes, of dis- 
ciples and Pharisees, Greeks and Phenicians, of prophet and 
Psalmist, lawgiver and divine Lord, “‘kurios” is found with 
a scale of ideas that, shading into one another, range from 
the term of respectful address, to Jehovah, the God of the 
old covenant. They saw him first as a man, a teacher; 
later, as a wonder-worker. One of the twelve apostles never 
called him “Lord,” but always, ‘‘Rabbi.” Gradually, how- 
ever, they were convinced of his deity, and a week after his 
resurrection Thomas reached the climax. But “kurios”’ 
serves as the form for addressing him, whether in ordinary 
respect or in profound veneration. In the later books of the 
New Testament “kurios’” is used hundreds of times of 
Christ; in Mark it occurs eight times, in the Corinthians, 
64 times. Some scholars say that “‘kurios” is used for God 
120 times in the N. T.; 79 times in quoting “Jehovah” from 
the O. T. But when there is only one word to be used of va- 
rious persons, its reference in some cases will be doubtful, 
and the doctors will disagree in their decisions. If ‘‘Jeho- 
vah” had been used in the N. T., that name, being unique, 
could have no doubtful reference. 

But the result of the substitution of “Lord” is not only 
confusion, but misrepresentation and slander. We have al- 
ready referred to this Mishap, but we may illustrate it fur- 
ther. A head of a house has gone to Russia and falls serious- 
ly ill. As he does not expect to recover he asks a Russian 
friend to write for him a testamentary epistle to his wife. 
She receives the document, and not understanding Russian 
has it translated by two linguists, independently. The hus- 
band’s name is Theodore, and has been used at various 
points in the letter. One translator renders it faithfully in 
every instance; the other substitutes for it the word ‘‘mas- 
ter.”” Which of these two translations will the wife prefer? 
She might say: 

“IT always loved my husband devotedly; I regarded 
him, as his name implies, as a gift from God, a 
boon from heaven; and I served him faithfully as my liege 
lord. I know that Sarah was commended for calling Abra- 
ham ‘lord;’ but that custom does not suit us today. If Saint 
Peter were now living, he might not press that term in 
these days of democracy. I constantly addressed Theodore 
by his beautiful and significant name. I shall not misrep- 
resent him as a tyrant; it would be slandering him to say 
that he always insisted on autocracy in our family. So, of 
course where he dictated the name Theodore, I will read 
that name. If he speaks of ‘the name of Theodore,’ it would 


14 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


be foolish to change his phrase to ‘the name of master.’ For 
‘master’ is not a name anyway.” 

In the Old Testament the phrase ‘‘the name of Jehovah” 
is very common. And when it is wrongly written, ‘‘the 
name of the Lord,” folly is substituted for sense. If, as we 
insisted, “Jehovah” is a name, we may properly speak of 
“the name, Jehovah.” “‘Lord” is not a name, and it is an 
absurdity to write, “the name, Lord.” 

Quite the worst result of this substitution is that, if it is 
not blasphemy to take liberties with our Heanvely Father’s 
Letter to His Children, it is at least treachery and false- 
hood. The simple reader of the common version is deceived 
when he is told that God wrote this book and called Himself 
“Lord” in any case, when He actually used His Name of 
Grace. The Jews repudiated God’s name of favor, and by 
substituting His title of majesty and despotism, thrust their 
Friend and Father afar off—away up to the zenith of the 
universe! What is the penalty for “taking away” aught of 
God’s message to men? What is the punishment for injur- 
ing the innocent, for robbing Christendom and the world? 
At last, after enduring this perversion for millenniums, the 
Christian world has had, for a few generations, versions 
that substitute seven thousand truths for the seven thou- 
sand lies! How can anyone who esteems truth hesitate in his 
choice of a version? Some versions slander the divine Au- 
thor; others honor Him. Some are foolish; others, sensible. 
Some, blasphemous or false; others, faithful. If we cannot 
make a perfect version, should we not at least make use of 
the most perfect version that we have? 

Some one may here object: “Inspiration has endorsed 
this substitution, and it is the Holy Spirit whom you correct 
when you restore ‘Jehovah’ in the New Testament.” This is 
just what Benjamin Wilson did in nearly a score of places 
in his Emphatic Diaglott. However, there can be no objec- 
tion to a marginal note at such points, calling attention to 
the fact that “Jehovah” was intended by the sacred writers, 
Even supposing that God in the N. T. has endorsed man’s 
error; would that justify man in continuing the error today 
in reproducing the Old Testament? Should we still falsify 
history and misrepresent God by following in the rough 
by-path of the wandering Jew instead of traveling the 
beautiful highway of truth? This far-reaching error of the 
Jewish scribe has set inspiration against inspiration: the 
O. T. uses “Yahweh,” and the N. T., in quoting the passage 
im point, and in similar circumstances, uses “Lord.” Why 
did God permit this contradiction in His Book? Well, why 
did He permit evil in the universe? Why did He allow other 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 15 


admitted errors to creep into the Book of Truth? Why did 
He allow any misunderstanding of His meaning? Why has 
He permitted men continually to contend over the interpre- 
tation of almost every chapter and doctrine of the 66 divi- 
sions? Which of His gifts to man has man not corrupted? 
Facts may be admitted, even when they cannot be explained. 

Again, we may consider a similar problem in the New 
Testament. In these days of Modernism and the New Evan- 
gelism, and the repudiation of a divine Savior, it is very 
common to emphasize the humanity of “Jesus;” to speak of 
him as a mere man, and to mention him with less respect 
than is shown to men. When we speak of “King George’’ 
of England, we do not familiarly call him “George,” but we 
respectfully leave that privilege to his queen and consort. 
Why then should we deny to the Lord Jesus his title? Sup- 
pose, as a reaction against this tendency, some conservative 
should endeavor to sanctify the name “Jesus,” and should 
propound the theory that it was too sacred to utter, too 
holy for human lips, and therefore in reading the New 
Testament, or on any other occasion, the name must not be 
pronounced, but the word “Savior” or “Master” must be 
substituted. Suppose that in the course of time this re- 
sulted in the disappearance of the name “Jesus” from 
Christendom, and the loss of its original form and pro- 
nunciation. But after further lapse of time the name is re- 
vived as far as possible, and restored to the Holy Book. 
Would this restoration be acceptable and welcome to Bible 
lovers? Should they not be grateful? In like manner sup- 
pose that some editors thought “Father” was too fa- 
miliar a term for us to use of God in the present dispen- 
sation, and therefore substituted ‘Ruler’ or “Master” 
wherever Father had been used. Would modern Christen- 
dom submit to the suppression of the precious epithet? And 
would not the church be grateful to subsequent editors who 
should restore the endearing term ‘‘Father’’? 

Again, one may ask: “Did: not God declare to Moses: 
‘This is my name forever, and this. is my memorial to all 
generations’? How then could He be faithless to His decla- 
ration?’’ We may find similar promises in Holy Writ that 
seem to have failed of literal fulfillment. The fulfillment of 
this promise seems to have suffered an eclipse for many 
Christian generations. Yet God made provision for the 
preservation of His covenant name in the name of his 
Anointed One. Unfortunately most Christians are ignorant 
of this fact: that “Jehovah” inheres in “Jesus;” that the 
J, e, of “Jesus” represents “Jehovah.” Ask any company 
of Christians the meaning of “Jesus,” and a few may an- 


16 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


swer, “Savior.” Fewer still can give the true answer, “Je- 
hovah is our Savior.” 

As we have seen, the divine providence led to the recov- 
ery of the Lost Name with the revival of learning, and to 
the restoration of it in a few instances in the English ver- 
sions. Possibly intervening versions made more use of it, 
but the first translator we know who restored it throughout 
was Robert Young, 1862; next came J. N. Darby, 1881. 
The British revisers, 1885, ventured on only eight additions 
to the seven occasions in the A. V.; but the American re- 
visers, 1901, also restored it throughout, and so did the 
Improved Bible of the American Baptists, 1912. J. B. Roth- 
erham used ‘‘Yahweh” everywhere. A colloquial version of 
eight Old Testament books of history and prophecy, edited 
by G. C. Martin, uses “Yahweh.” Thus, in our day, this 
Mishap has been partly remedied, and the tetragramma- 
ton that God wrote on stone, and His servants wrote on 
parchment, may be read today in its revived and printed 
form, THE NAME JEHOVAH. 


Christ and Messiah. 7 


We may at this point allude’ to the title of Jesus, which 
involves a question of translation, but does not involve a 
serious mishap like the loss of the name Jehovah. The 
angels announced to the shepherds of Bethlehem that the 
newborn Savior was (according to most versions) ‘Christ 
the Lord.” These last three nouns are all called titles of 
Christ, but their uses are not identical. “Savior” is a de- 
scriptive epithet, an appellation, referring to his purpose 
and work. If we spoke of “Life-saver Jones,” or “Saver 
Brown,” and the like, “Saver” would become a title, as 
“Master” becomes a title in the familiar form “Mr.” 
“Christ” is from the Greek “christos,” a participle or verbal 
adjective or substantive, meaning “anointed,” “an anointed 
one.” It was at first used as a descriptive epithet of Jesus, 
then as a title of Jesus; and at last was used as a surname, 
becoming a proper noun. In “Jesus Christ’ “Christ” is add- 
ed as a surname to the given name “Jesus.” In “Christ 
Jesus” “Christ” is a title prefixed to the name “Jesus.” 
Jesus was first Jehovah’s Anointed One; then, “King 
Jesus;’ and lastly “Jesus Christ.”’ 

Now “Messiah” is originally the exact Hebrew equiva- 
lent of the Greek “Christ.” But altho “Messiah” and 
“Christ’”’ are the same originally, they have come to suggest 
different ideas. “Jesus Messiah” does not sound like a prop- 
er noun as “Jesus Christ” does. The idea suggested by the 
mention of “Messiah” is a prince expected by the Jews. 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 17 


The idea suggested by the word “Christ” is a savior who 
came two millenniums ago—the God of the Christians. 
Both words mean “anointed,” one who, by a simple cere- 
mony, is set apart, selected and appointed, to a special func- 
tion, to the honorable office of prophet, priest or prince. 
When we think of the Messianic office, the one of these 
three uppermost in our minds is the office of king. So when 
we say “Jesus Christ,’ we think of a person of that name; 
we do not think of his office. When we say “Jesus the Mes- 
siah,” we think of the coming King, Jehovah’s Anointed. 
Thus the connotations of “Christ” and ‘“‘Messiah” have 
changed with the usage of the ages. 

Now when we compare the usage of the conventional 
versions with that of the adventurous or unconventional 
translations, we find that some of the latter make consider- 
able use of “Messiah” instead of “Christ.” The Hebrew 
‘“Messiah”’ is seldom used by the translators of our common 
versions. It does not appear in the O. T., A. R. V., and 
appears only twice in the A. V., Dan. 9:25,26. Fenton and 
Young use it in Psa. 2:2, and Fenton, in Dan. 9:24, in a 
peculiar interpretation. In the Twentieth Century N. T., the 
the first verse of the book (Mk. 1:1) speaks of “Jesus 
Christ.” This is the surname, and even Fenton uses “Christ” 
here. But in Mat. 1:16 Fenton translates “Christos” “the 
appointed Messiah;’’ and in the 17th verse renders it ‘the 
Messiah.” In Luke 2:11 the original is “christos kurios,” 
with neither article nor conjunction. Here Fenton, Moffatt 
and Benj. Wilson render “the Lord Messiah;’” Goodspeed, 
“your Messiah and Lord;”’ the Riverside, “Christ and 
Lord;” Kent, “God’s Anointed ;”’ Weymouth, Robertson and 
Montgomery, “the Anointed Lord;”’ the A. R. V., gives the 
same in the margin; but the text and-various other versions 
have the familiar “Christ the Lord.” J. N. Darby prints 
the article in brackets: “‘Christ [the] Lord.’”’ Another trans- 
lator renders ‘“‘Messiah Yahweh.” Why not translate: ‘An- 
ointed Jehovah?” Jesus was the anointed of Jehovah, yet 
he was himself Jehovah, incarnate; hence, “anointed Lord,” 
with a note naming “Jehovah,” should be acceptable. Our 
discussion has previously shown how many pages of explan- 
ation would be required to make the ordinary reader under- 
stand why the N. T. authors did not write “Jehovah.” 

We have above nine different renderings of two words, by 
over a dozen translators; enough to give ignorant believers 
in the verbal inspiration of the A. V. some conception of the 
difficulty of translating the 800,000 words of Scripture. 
But the latest version, the new “Weymouth” (1924), gives 
a tenth reading, simply “the Christ.”’ This implies a differ- 


18 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


ent Greek text; but the translator gives no note nor explan- 


ation of his divergence. Illustrations might be multiplied; 
but we sum up by observing that Robertson, in Luke, uses 
“Messiah” six times; Wilson, in the Gospels and Acts, uses 
it 49 times; in the N. T. Moffatt uses it 8 times; Kent, 19 
times; in the whole Bible Fenton uses it 80 times; and 
Arthur 8. Way, in his version of 14 epistles, uses ‘‘Messiah”’ 
throughout; tho he shows some hesitation, on his page of 
reasons for always using “Messiah” instead of Christ.” If 
one should consider all these cases individually, we do not 
see how he could escape the conviction that there is often 
great fitness in the choice of the Hebrew term. 

We saw that some translators, at Luke 2:11, inserted a 
definite article. Now the article is a small part of speech, 
but it has its importance. The English is fortunately rich 


enough to have both definite and indefinite articles; the 


Greek has only the definite. Some say that “‘kurios” in the 
N. T. is generally used of “Jehovah,” and ‘“‘ho kurios” is 
used for ‘‘the Lord,” etc. This shows of how much import- 
ance a little word may be. And we have already seen the un- 
certainty and the disagreement of the doctors as to the 
meaning in many cases. Likewise ‘“‘ho christos” is generally 
the adjective or title, and ‘‘christos” alone is the proper 
name. The one represents Jesus the King; the other speaks 
of “Jesus King’—as we would speak of “James King’— 
without any thought of kingship or Messiahship. Prof. R. 
D. Wilson says that “Christ” is used 285 times in the N. T.; 
“Jesus Christ,’ 91 times; “Christ Jesus,” 50; and “Lord 
Jesus Christ,’ 83. “Lord” is used of Christ 368 times, and 
“Lord” is used of God, 120 times. Who can estimate the 
difficulty of distinguishing “Jehovah,” “‘Lord God,” “‘Lord 
Jesus,” “Christ,” and “Messiah,” in many obscure cases 
when poverty of language and confusion needlessly caused 
occasion the use of one word for several persons? So, with 
the title of Jesus as well as with the name of God, there 
may be room for improvement on the work of the old trans- 
lators. 
Mishaps in Arrangement. 

Not only in the matter of translation may mishaps oc- 
cur, but also in the presentation of a literature; in the form 
of its arrangement. Thought is expressed not only by words, 
but by mere space, and by position in space; not only by 
written characters, but by the absence of characters, by 
blanks between parts of the writing. We referred, at the 
beginning of our discussion, to the absence of spaces be- 
tween letters and words, between sentences and paragraphs, 
between chapters and books, in the earliest forms of writ- 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 19 


ing. We do not know all the history of the arrangement of 
our Bible, but we know that Paul refers to “the second 
Psalm” (Acts 18:33); and perhaps in his day all the 
Psalms were numbered, and the Psalter divided into its five 
separate books. If the length of book-rolls was limited to 
thirty feet, perhaps this prevented the whole Psalter from 
being written on one roll; and caused Samuel and other 
books to be written on two rolls instead of one. Then, with- 
in the rolls the Law and the Prophets were divided into 
portions for periodical readings in the synagogues. 

There was a gap of four centuries between the writing 
of the Old and New Covenants. During this period the 24 
Hebrew books were translated into Greek, and the number 
was increased, by dividing them differently, to 39. A four- 
fold classification, introducing an historical section, was 
made of them instead of the triple distinction of Law, 
Prophets and Psalms. We do not know how many different 
rolls were found in the synagogue chests, covering these 39 
books, nor how many rolls were added in the Christian 
churches for the 27 New Covenant books that finally 
brought the total number to 66. But in the third century, 
A. D., the roll-form gave way to books of leaves, as the 
horse is now surrendering to the automobile; and the whole 
Bible could then be written in a single volume. The division 
into 66 books was followed by the Latin Vulgate and then 
by the successive versions in the languages of Europe. 
After another millennium the Hebrew divisions into longer 
and shorter ‘“‘lessons,” etc., gave way to Christian separa- 
tions into chapters and verses—divisions made not always 
for the better; for the break is frequently made in the mid- 
dle instead of at the end of a subject. In illustration of 


- such mishaps we shall venture to append a novelette that 


treats of this theme. 


RUIN? OR RESTORATION? 
1. Hash? or the Fowl Articulate? 


Mrs. James King was newly wed, newly rich, and newly 
arrived in Peking. Her cousin, Miss Marcia Stanley Dodd, 
a tall and beautiful girl, who had grown up and graduated 
in America, had accompanied her to the Orient. Mr. King, 
an old-fashioned Britisher, had joined the foreign commun- 
ity of the Celestial capital, and lived near the American 
Legation. Marcia’s brother, ‘‘Stan’’ Dodd, some years be- 
fore, had made a desperate effort to get control of King’s 
rights in America, but had found him exceedingly tena- 
cious of his claim. (Accounts of the argument have been 
given by the Homiletic Review and the Bibliotheca Sacra). 


20 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


The King’s had called on their neighbors and on the nota- 
ble partis whose acquaintance was desirable; and had re- 
ceived their return calls and had called again. A wide- 
awake American, Mr. Marvin Inglis, had become enamored 
of Miss Dodd, proposed to her, and had been accepted. And 
now Mrs. King was planning an impressive dinner for a 
circle of select friends to whom she would announce the 
engagement. Her Chinese chef, Kin Jay, had been inter- 
rogated as to his ability to prepare the turkey that was to 
honor this occasion. To him we must apologize for our 
crude attempt to reproduce his elegant “‘pidgin—i. e., busi- 
ness—English;’’ but we may convey his idea thus: 

“QO, yes, lady; me can roast bird; cook topside way.” 

So Mrs. King, with childlike confidence, had entrusted the 
preparation to his assured ability, and sat down to the table 
with her brilliant assemblage of guests; and after the fish 
course had remarked, sotto voce, to Mr. Inglis: 

“My chef secured the largest turkey that I ever saw; 
and Mr. King is such a good carver. So you must tell him 
what is your choice portion.” 

But she had ‘‘counted her chicken before it was hatched ;” 
for as the waiter set the large dish before the host, it dis- 
closed no noble fowl, elaborately garnished, with arms up-. 
stretched to the knife-blade, but a multitudinous collection 
of morsels, each small enough to be received in the mouth 
from celestial chopsticks! Mrs. King’s countenance fell; 
she bit off the end of her tongue (the first word that came 
to her lips) and swallowed it; and for two days and nights 
after the party suffered indigestion from the red-hot mor- 
sel! But in spite of her dismay and mortification, she 
cheerily exclaimed: 

“You will all have to shut your eyes, exercise a powerful 
imagination, and reproduce the bird entire!” 

The British Ambassador volunteered an explanation: 

_“The Chinese think it barbarous to use a knife, like the 
butcher, in the dining room; so they make the food all ready 
for the mouth, in the kitchen.” 

When all was over Kin Jay explained to his mistress his 
point of view: 

“Me no steal any turkey; him all there on the plate, ready 
to eat. Me do all the work for honorable master; he no have 
to cut meat from the bones.” (Mrs. King sighed). “If Kin 
ever do turkey trick, one more time, lady bounce me right 
quick !” 

2. Ribbons? or Garments? 
A few days later he summoned up courage to ask leave to 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 21 


attend a party given by his friends; and a scheme occurred 
to Mr. King that would at once furnish a complete re- 
venge for the mistress, and afford an instructive object 
lesson to the domestic. The master accordingly engaged 
some amateur highwaymen to waylay Kin on his way to 
the party. These enthusiastic bandits adroitly held up the 
cheerful youth in a dark street, gagged him, stripped him 
of his holiday attire, tore his coat and skirt into numerous 
strips four or five inches wide, and then addressed him: 

“Now which will you choose? Shall we cut off your feet? 
or your head? Shall we carve you in pieces? or let you go, 
whole and free?” 

To the last of these four proposals the terrified Kin ve- 
hemently nodded his assent, and his captors then amazed 
him by returning the streamers with the sage advice: 

“Now re-dress yourself in these convenient portions of 
your clothing; number them in order, if you like; and you 
will find them far more suitable than the logical divisions 
of coat and skirt. Turkey hash is more easily edible than 
the whole bird!” 

3. Mangled Fragments? or a Perfect Physique? 

A few days after the banquet Inglis called at the King’s, 
somewhat gloomy because of a horrible dream, which he 
proceeded to relate to them. 

“T dreamt that Marcia went to Tientsin to purchase her 
trousseau. On her return I was at the station to meet her. 
As she got off the train she saw me, but did not see a train 
that was approaching on the intervening track. She was in 
such haste to reach me that she stumbled and fell across the 
track, arms stretched above her head. The wheels passed 
over her, severing head, hands and feet from her body, 
which was dragged and terribly mangled. I was utterly 
crazed by the sight, and laughed insanely, crying out: ‘O, 
it is all for the best. I can handle the pieces better than such 
a heavy body! All the pieces are equal to the whole.’ So I 
began to pick up the pieces, one by one, and lay them to- 
gether in order, but as I deposited each fragment, there was 
rung from me the sad moan: ‘This is not Marcia! This is 
not Marcia!’ ”’ 


4. Verse Division? or Artistic Presentation? 


The most prominent minister in the Chinese cabinet had 
been a guest at the Kings’ banquet, for he was an esteemed 
friend who cordially reciprocated the regard of his new 
acquaintances. The honorable Mr. Sun had acquired a per- 
fect mastery of English, and he was developing an interest 
in the religion of these people whom he had once regarded 


22 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


as “foreign devils.” The King’s were strongly imbued with 
the missionary spirit, and were very anxious to make a 
favorable impression upon this influential man in behalf of 
Christianity. As Inglis finished telling his dream, Mr. Sun 
happened in to make his party call. In their conversation 
the subject of the Christian revelation came up, and Mr. 
Sun remarked to Mrs. King: 

“T looked into your classic, which you gave me the other 
day, and was greatly surprised by the form of presenta- 
tion of your sacred literature; if indeed it deserves the de- 
scription of ‘literature.’ For it violates the fundamental 
canons of expression and of rhetoric. It is hardly a ‘book;’ 
at least, it is unlike every other book in existence. It is a 
curio! For it is mechanically divided into short paragraphs 
of nearly uniform length, the breaks often coming right in 
the middle of sentences; a wretched arrangement for either 
the private or the public reader. It reminded me of the 
turkey hash that greeted our sight when you were expect- 
ing a fine fowl, to be artistically disjointed; and also of the 
ribbons that your highwaymen told Kin Jay were just as 
convenient to don as the logically divided coat and skirt!” 

“Yes,” interposed Marcia, ‘“‘and it is like Mr. Inglis’ lu- 
natic dream, in which he declared that my pieces were pre- 
ferable to my personality complete! The aim of the printer 
is to so arrange the matter as to enlighten the reader. If 
the editor does not use his brain to analyse the material, 
then the reader has to find the beginning and end of sen- 
tences and themes and sections; and the ordinary reader 
has not the brains to achieve this. The ordinary public 
reader is tripped up by the broken sentences and mangled 
themes of the book you had, so that he fails to convey the 
truth to his audience. If I wrote Mrs. King a letter chopped 
up in these verse-paragraphs, she would say I had taken 
leave of my senses. If a foreman printed a newspaper in 
verse fashion, he would be discharged before noon. If a pub- 
lisher printed a book in this minced-meat style, the author 
would be unutterably indignant, and the public would not 
buy a copy of the book. If it was a valuable and unique 
work, people who had to have it would buy it and put up 
with it. But if issued in two editions, one in the thought- 
concealing form, and the other, thought-revealing, and 
copies were placed on sale, side by side, not a copy of the 
former edition would be purchased, and all of it might at 
once be consigned to the bon-fire or the pulp-vat. 

“The objections to this senseless verse-division are not 
merely theoretical and sentimental, but are of practical 
importance. This outrage on. the Holy Book was perpetrated 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 23 


less than four centuries ago. During this period the error 
has led people to look upon the Bible as a collection of in- 
dependent texts; which texts might be appealed to, irre- 
spective of their context, as proofs of every kind of idea 
and doctrine. And this practice is responsible for some of 
the sad divisions and schisms of Christendom. It is true 
that the King James version can be, and has been, presented 
in paragraph form; but such editions were little appreci- 
ated and their influence was inconsiderable. When the re- 
vised versions appeared in paragraph form, some British 
and some Americans still insisted that the book, or the 
Sunday school lesson texts taken from it, should be chopped 
up into these chips of a few lines each. People had become 
accustomed to regard this form as the norm for Bible 
printing, and for various reasons have refused to surrender 
what has been a great injury to their scriptures and to 
their religion. Of course the division into paragraphs is 
differently executed by different editors, and the length of 
paragraphs varies from the cumbersome size of those in the 
revisions to the detailed and artistic modern printing of 
works like Weymouth’s, in which each participant in con- 
versation is given, for every remark he makes, a separate 
paragraph in quotation marks.” 


5. Mutilation and Murder? or a Logical Unit? 


“Another injury,’ added Stanley, “has arisen from the 
blind division of the chapters. If the highwaymen who tore 
up Kin Jay’s garments had cut off his feet, he would have 
been more seriously outraged than he was. If they had cut 
off his head, his friends would have sought vengeance on 
the murderers. But in just as cruel a way the old versions 
mutilate and murder the Word of God. The story of crea- 
tion which forms the impressive introduction to the Scrip- 
tures has its end severed from it by the premature indica- 
tion of ‘Chapter 2’ of Genesis. And Isaiah’s ode on Jehovah’s 
Suffering Servant, Satisfied, is beheaded by the inopportune 
marking of ‘Chapter 53.’ Such instances are painfully num- 
erous in the medieval versions. Dr. Bullinger lists a number 
of these mutilations in his illuminating work on the way to 
enjoy the Bible. 

“He claims that mutilations occurred in making some of 
the larger divisions also. The Hebrew division of the Old 
Testament books into 24 was altered to 39 by the Septua- 
gintal committee, and the divisions sometimes come in the 
middle of narratives. The reason may have been the poor 
one that the scribe did not make his parchment roll long 
enough! Bullinger does not criticise the division into Old 


24 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


and New Testaments, tho he makes a very interesting com- 
ment on the connection of Malachi with the New Covenant. 
But, he says, the mistranslation, ‘Testament’ instead of 
‘Covenant,’ in these titles, has been a calamity to the church. 
The American New Testament revisers made a step toward 
correction here, adding an alternative ‘New Covenant’ to 
the title page. Thus,”’ concluded Stanley, ‘“‘the illogical sepa- 
rations of parts of subjects have blurred our understand- 
ing of much of this wonderful revelation. If it would be an 
insult to a human author thus to mutilate his work, how 
much greater an insult is it to the divine Author to make 
hash of the noblest literature in the world!” 


6. A Strange Language? or Our Mother Tongue? 

“Then,” suggested Marcia, ‘there are other objections to 
the King James version beside its failure to ‘rightly divide 
the word of truth;’ and one is the kind of English in which 
this important revelation is brought to us. Every genera- 
tion should be addressed in its own language; and the more 
important the subject matter, the more necessary it is that 
the language should be natural and accustomed.” 

‘Would you abandon the best English that was ever writ- 
ten?’ queried Mr. King. “Can you find more terse, simple 
and dignified English anywhere than that of the King 
James Bible?” 

“No,” replied Marcia, ‘“‘but I would relegate it to its place 
in the study of literature. Students may find profit in the 
King James version just as they do in Shakespeare, Milton 
and all old English and Anglo-Saxon authors. But if the 
King James English were ten times as admirable as it is, 
that would not make it our English, the English of the 
present day; nor would it be appropriate for use today. A 
message from God to man is the most important communi- 
cation that we can think of; and it, above all other mes- 
sages, should be conveyed in our mother-tongue.”’ 

“T could never give up the Authorized Version,” inter- 
posed Mrs. King; “it was my mother’s Bible; it was the 
means of her conversion and of mine, and of multitudes of 
others. And I mean to live and die and go to heaven on my 
old Bible.” 

“That is all very well for you,” replied Marcia, “but with 
many it is different. Most people are outside of the church, 
and have not been brought up on the King James Bible, 
and the word of God ought to reach them in their natural 
speech. No wonder the man in the street, with ill-concealed 
disdain, sometimes asks: ‘Why can not Christians keep 
their sacred classic up to date?’ The King James English is 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 25 


of course effective for journalistic parodies and parables; 
and no doubt we shall long use some of the King James 
expressions in our prayers. But while many congregations 
permit their preachers to read the Bible and pray in that 
English, they would not for a week tolerate their preaching 
in such English.”’ 

“The missionaries who, during the past century, have 
translated the Bible into Chinese,” remarked Mr. Sun, “‘did 
not translate it into the Chinese of centuries long gone, but 
into the Chinese of today. If America were heathen, and 
missionaries went there to translate the Bible, they would 
not think of using the best King James English, but would 
render the original into the best modern American. So, if 
the Lord Jesus Christ came to any country today, as he once 
came to Palestine and used not the classical Hebrew but 
the vernacular dialect, Aramaic, He would today use the 
present speech of the people He was addressing, and never, 
that of their remote ancestors.” 

“People are sensible,” remarked Inglis, “in their busi- 
ness dealings and social intercourse. If, when I came here 
just now, I had asked: ‘Where art thou, Marcia?’ ‘What 
doest thou here, Dodd?’ and talked on in that fashion, you 
would say I was slightly cracked; that my style was stilted 
and ridiculous. Passing to the more important matter of 
religion does not change the situation except to make it 
more reasonable for the Bible to read: ‘Where are you, 
Adam?’ ‘What are you doing here, Elijah? Hence, altho a 
conservative humanity insisted that the King James ver- 
sion should be revised only where absolutely necessary, I 
consider that mere revision was inadequate. If reason in- 
stead of custom had been consulted, the demand would have 
been for retranslation. Conservatives dote on the King 
James English because ‘it is quaint and unique, and raises 
religion above the common;’ and they expect the King 
James Bible to continue the common version for all time to 
come. To the progressives this is unpractical; the antique 
English is suggestive of cant and insincerity, and so is al- 
ready unsuitable for use. For religion is not a matter to be 
restricted to certain holy days and holy places; but it should 
sanctify every day and every place.” 


7. Bad English? or Good Grammar? 

“The King James English,” said Mr. Sun, “is not only 
foreign to you, but many of its expressions are, to the mod- 
ern ear, most clumsy and uncouth; such as: ‘which my 
covenant they brake.’ Others, according to modern stand- 
ards, are even ungrammatical, as the use of double nega- 


26 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


tives and the misplacing of adverbs. When the supreme 
Rabbi discourses on Prayer, He is represented as instruct- 
ing His disciples to insult His Father by intimating that 
He is a thing (‘Our Father which’) instead of a person 
(‘Our Father who’). An admirer of the King James trans- 
lators has said: ‘There were giants in those days.’ While we 
are glad to admit that, we must remember that ‘a dwarf 
on the giant’s shoulders sees farther than the giant;’ and 
those giants made grammatical blunders that a schoolboy 
should be ashamed to make. You claim that the unique 
Man portrayed in the gospels is God; if so, he must be 
omniscient. Yet he is represented as ignorant of the simpie 
rules of grammar; for in this version he is quoted six times 
as saying: ‘Whom do men say I am?’ ete. And in Acts 18:25 
His forerunner is represented as misusing the same objec- 
tive ‘whom.’ These errors jar on the ear of a lover of good 
English as false notes grate on the ear of a sensitive musi- 
cian.” 

“T am very sorry, Mr. Sun,” said Inglis, “that you derived 
your first impression of the Christian scriptures from Mrs. 
King’s Bible. I am going to loan you some modern trans- 
lations that are open to none of these objections. They are 
artistically paragraphed, and illuminated by section-head- | 
ings and side-titles; they are in our mother tongue; the un- 
couth expressions are not found, and the grammatical 
errors are corrected. Thus the King’s English is not mur- 
dered. Moreover, indecent expressions are refined. We must 
remember that the King James English is not always the 
“matchless English’ of which some preachers so enthusi- 
astically orate. If any preacher would dare to stand in his 
pulpit and read to a mixed audience some passages from 
the A. V. that we would indicate, his officers would prompt- 
ly kick him out of the church door, and in disgust hurl 
King James out of the window! But if he should read the 
Same passages from a refined modern version, not a ripple 
of dissatisfaction would pass over the congregation. Surely 
common sense dictates the choice of a decent version. 


8. Falsehood? or Truth? 


“In another important point these versions have im- 
proved on the medieval ones: they omit some passages 
which all scholars, even the most conservative, admit to be 
spurious additions. They omit also a number of other pas- 
sages that are in dispute, and which the extreme conserva- 
tives would retain. But if in a single case the A. V. says: 
‘John wrote this;’ when everyone knows that he did not, 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 27 


then the A. V. is a falsifier, and professes to be the book 
of the God of Truth while it contains a known lie. 


“Many people speak of the ‘Bible’ without knowing what 
the word means: they mean the King James version, and 
they forget to distinguish between the original and the 800 
partial versions that have been made from it (150, com- 
plete). They forget to distinguish between the first auto- 
graph and the copies that have been successively made for 
millenniums, into which many errors have crept, in spite 
of the greatest possible care. Some good people, and even 
great scholars with a pulpit Bible between their hands, are 
fond of announcing: ‘I believe every word of this book from 
cover to cover.’ This fashion is to be deprecated as inaccu- 
rate; for it leads the ordinary hearer to imagine that the 
King James Bible is inspired and inerrant, a character 
which no theologian nor any thoughtful person ever claimed 
for any copy or translation. Even if God miraculously 
guarded the original writers and amanuenses from a single 
slip in a jot or tittle, no one can conceive of infallability in 
any copyist or translator.” 


‘““Have you not read,” interjected Mrs. King, ‘“‘the asser- 
tion of a noted professor of a great American university, 
published in a prominent ladies’ magazine, that the King 
James Bible is inspired?” - 


“T grant that exception,” admitted Inglis; ‘‘but that pro- 
fessor is a literary ‘fan,’ and he is not using the word ‘in- 
spired’ in a technical, but in the popular, sense. And that 
very professor was unaware of the glaring errors of the 
seven ‘whoms’ in the medieval version; and when we called 
them to his attention, and he had investigated the matter, 
the most he could say was that it is a wonder that the King 
James committee made so few mistakes! When writers like 
him and Dean Burgon enthuse over the Authorized version, 
you will find them careful to mention none of these defects 
and deficiencies, even tho aware of them. Burgon, who was 
not only an intelligent but an erudite scholar, was so car- 
ried away by the A. V. that he defended even its verse- 
form! And even the professor of English literature, when 
he quotes, follows the senseless paragraphs of the King 
James instead of printing the passage as if his readers had 
learned to read, and knew the difference between logical 
and lunatic paragraphing. Apparently he does not appre- 
ciate the dictum of a prince of Bible-printers (the author 
of THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE) that ‘the 
King James Bible is the worst printed book in the world” 
Thus, alas, doth usage close the eyes of reason! Reason, 


28 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


however, insists on the truth, even tho copyists, translators 
and editors are thereby shown to be human and fallible. 


9. Robbery? or Reparation? 


“We are, then, obliged to charge the King James version 
with being a liar, .because of unjustifiable additions. And 
we regret that we must charge it with being a robber also 
because of unjustifiable subtractions. We have already re- 
marked that it robs God of His dignity by speaking of Him 
as a thing; it robs Him of His intelligence by representing 
Him as using bad grammar; it robs Him of His gracious 
words when it reproduces His thoughts in awkward, grace- 
less style; and we might ask also if, according to the Septua- 
gint, it does not rob the Old Testament of many passages 
that the original contained, and which were omitted by 
copyists of late date. But the most serious robbery was 
when the Jews robbed God of His ineffable name; when 
they robbed the Book, for two millenniums, of the name of 
its Author. 

“Mr. King, if you wrote a book, and put your name, 
‘James King,’ on the title page, and on the next page wrote: 
‘Copyright, by James King,’ and ‘on the following leaf dedi- 
cated the book over your name, ‘James King,’ and signed the 
preface and perhaps some footnotes ‘James King;’ and you © 
gave the manuscript to a publisher, and he substituted 
everywhere for your name the description: ‘a British sub- 
ject,’ and sent you a copy of the book thus printed; would 
you not feel unspeakably outraged and insulted?” 

“Indeed I should,” answered Mr. King. “I would surely 
collect the heaviest damages I could.” 

“Much more, then, when the Lord Jehovah places His 
name in His book not a meagre seven, but nearly seven 
thousand, times, and we print, in almost every instance, 
only His title, we have insulted Him, and robbed Him and 
His readers of their rights. Now some modern versions, in- 
cluding the American Standard, have tried to repair this 
damage by restoring the holy name in some 6,823 instances. 
And one edition (Bullinger’s COMPANION BIBLE) notes 
the 134 additional cases in which the ancient Sopherim 
robbed the book not only of the pronunciation of the in- 
effable name, but of the name itself—consonants as well as 
vowels! That is, they substituted the consonants of Adonai 
or Elohim as well as their vowels for those of Yahweh. You 
know what curse the book of Revelation denounces on those 
who ‘take away from’ the Word of God; and if the infinite 
One is greater than you are, you can estimate how much 
worse it is to insult Him than to insult you!” 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 29 


10. Apathy’? or Advance? 


“We must allow,” admitted Mrs. King, ‘“‘that the moderns 
have made some improvements upon the earlier versions. 
But in many cases I think that the revisers’ attempts to 
amend have resulted only in spoiling a good rendering.” 

“That is true,” replied Marcia, and it is most unfortun- 
ate. But you would not therefore go back to a version that, 
as we have seen, has such serious faults? Shall we not 
rather revise again? Or, as was suggested, make a new 
translation? If the English of the modern versions is not 
satisfactory, are there no scholars and poets today who can 
write as good English, or even better English for the Bible 
than they use in secular literature? Of course we would have 
difficulties today in this task which the Christians of King 
James’ day did not meet. They were not divided into two 
camps—Fundamentalist and Modernist. Today each of 
these parties would require its own Bible. The effort of Dr. 
Scofield’s committee, in 1911, to produce a Fundamentalist 
version, was not a success; altho their work in certain re- 
spects may be unsurpassed. But they refused to restore 
‘Jehovah;’ and their production, in spite of liberal adver- 
tising, did not become widely known.” 

“We must have, anyway,’ remarked Mr. King, ‘better 
paragraphing than the revisions furnish, equal to that of 
the best modern English versions. And the verse numbers 
should be confined to the margin instead of intruding into 
the text. Where the end of a verse is doubtful, some sign can 
readily be placed at the proper point in the line. Continuous 
paging throughout the Bible can easily be supplied for 
those who do not know whether a certain book is in the Old 
or New Testament, and therefore cannot tell, when using a 
revised edition, whether to look for ‘page 150’ in the Old or 
New Testament!” 

“I am surprised to hear,” replied Marcia, “that even the 
separate paging of the Old and New Testaments in the re- 
vision has proved a stumbling block. 


The Rationale of AVitis. 


“But how do you account for the popular indifference to 
the improvements that we have? for the apathy as to fur- 
ther advance?” 

“Well,” replied Inglis, “one of the strongest characteris- 
tics of human nature is conservatism. It is so much easier 
to stay in a rut and to stick in the mud than to pull out and 
to build a hard, smooth road, that people prefer to tolerate 
the mediocre and the inferior. They are apparently bound 
by a chain of fateful kinship and descent: Indifference is 


30 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


the child of Indolence, the sister of Ingratitude, the mother 
of Ignorance. Ignorance produces Prejudice; Prejudice be- 
gets Bigotry; and Bigotry, a friend of Fanaticism, is the 
parent of Persecution. When it has martyred its victims, 
Persecution produces Deicide and Suicide, as in the case of 
Pilate. Humanity murdered its Messiah, Jews and Gentiles 
joining in his assassination and in the execution of his com- 
missioner to the nations. Yet Christ and Paul were seek- 
ing only to bring peace to the earth. Rome murdered Wy- 
clif and Tindale, and then burnt them, because they were 
bringing the Bible to the people in an intelligible vernacu- 
lar. The King James translators and their successors have, 
in milder modes, been attacked because they provided im- 
proved versions for the Anglo-Saxon. While the American 
Revision Committee has been treated with ingratitude by 
the majority of Americans who have not learned, in over 
a generation, the difference between the A. V. and the R. V., 
still the mass of American scholars have adopted the Re- 
vision, and the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the 
Committee’s labors was celebrated throughout the country, 
two years ago, with appropriate enthusiasm. 

“But most people are afflicted with kainophobia, they 
are convinced that ‘what is new is not true.’ As the Israel- 
ites read the Old Covenant with veiled face, so Christians. 
insist on reading Holy Writ thru burnt glasses, lest the 
glory of its full meaning should blind them! When the Cre- 
ator made man, He built a little box on top of his shoulders, 
and installed in it an organ which may be called a ‘thinker.’ 
This, it is claimed, makes man a rational animal. But does 
man appreciate God’s gift? Do you know anyone who uses 
his thinker ?” 

“T believe,” said King meekly, “that a few people make 
use of it.” 

“True, said Inglis, and the rest of men are not rational 
animals, but sheep. A bell-wether happens to start in a cer- 
tain direction, and the rest follow. The bell-wether may 
think, or he may not. If he thinks, he may think well; or 
ill. But the rest follow, and call the following ‘conserva- 
tism.’ I have previously remarked that conservatism is 
not essentially a good principle. Its quality is contingent. 
It depends on the object of the conservation—whether the 
custom conserved be good or bad, better or best. So, when 
a bell-wether, in 1551 A. D., committed this folly of muti- 
lating the divine literature, other printers followed him, up 
to the last century, when some other bell-wether began to 
think, and thought better of it. Recently an advocate for 
the A. V. has revived the criticisms of Dean Burgon, made 


MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 31 


40 years ago, of the Greek text of the New Testament 
adopted by the revisers, and has claimed that the later 
manuscripts are of more value than those of the fourth 
and fifth centuries, such as the Sinaitic and Vatican manu- 
scripts. But his plausible arguments have not spread alarm 
among scholars nor thrown their ranks into disorder. 

“dison has declared that it takes the public from seven 
to rorty years to appreciate a new invention. And if that 
is so, in the material sphere, it is not strange if it requires 
a generation or two for Christians to adopt an improved 
form of their sacred heritage. 

“Men are victims not only of inertia, but also of indiff- 
erence. The Creator provided man’s organism not only with 
a thinker, but with an organ which we may call a ‘feeler,’ 
and which is capable of expressing affection; so He hoped 
that man would show some filial affection toward his father- 
ly Maker. But does man respond to this expectation? If he 
showed an interest in the God of revelation, would he not 
show an equal interest in the revelation? If he appreciated 
God’s condescending to be called a Father, would he push 
Him far away by calling Him ‘Lord’? If he cared more 
about God and His Word, would he rest content with a good 
version when a better one is at his elbow? 

“If ignorant people are indifferent, they will not learn. 
Dr. Frank Crane has characterized the multitudes as cow- 
ardly and lazy. But should he stop with the multitudes? 
Will not some of their leaders fall under the same con- 
demnation? The people are like their priests and princes, 
and they can influence even their prophets. If the scholars 
of the country would inaugurate a campaign for the in- 
struction of the people, we might anticipate a development 
of public sentiment. But what if the preachers are ignor- 
‘ant? In our national metropolis we met a preacher who 
affirmed: ‘The revision has been a curse’! In a smaller city 
a leading preacher innocently asked: ‘What is the Geneva 
version?’ A prominent educator thought that the chapter 
and verse division was inspired; influential citizens sup- 
posed that the A. V. was inerrant! Even some preachers 
who are intelligent and informed are inactive; they are 
slow to inform their charges of the defects of the common 
version, fearing to undermine their faith and to excite the 
prejudice and opposition of the bigoted. They would ‘let 
well enough alone’ rather than try to illumine the sur- 
rounding darkness. They evidently consider discretion the 
better part of valor, and hesitate to attack a popular idol. 
For they remember that Canute found it bootless to chastise 
the ocean. Protestants thus follow in the steps of the church 


32 MISHAPS IN THE MAKING 


of Rome, which would keep the people in ignorance of the 
Bible so that they may depend upon the priest for knowl- 
edge and may continue under his control. 


12. Folly? Or Wisdom? 

“Everyone admits that the A. V. was the best version up 
to the past century, and all admire the style of English that 
was used in the palmy days of Elizabeth and James. But 
we do not therefore today print all our newspapers and 
books in Elizabethan English! In all cases excepting the 
divine message, we have sense enough to address our fel- 
lowmen in their mother tongue. For the first twenty years 
of my grandfather’s life the A. V. was the best Bible, and so 
he was justified in using it. For the next two decades he had 
a better Bible in the British version. But for the last twenty 
three years we have had the American revision and the 
multiplying versions in modern English, and the wealth of 
understanding and enjoyment of the Word that these ver- 
sions furnish. There was an advantage, of course, in having 
a single standard version: it gave the power of association 
to a certain familiar form of words, and in quoting Scrip- 
ture there was no hesitation in choosing a version. But 
there is a greater advantage in knowing the spirit of the 
Book, and even in learning the truth that it is impossible 
always to define its exact meaning, than there is in an 
ignorant and mistaken confidence in its literal correctness. 
There is certainty enough for us in the essentials without 
our being dogmatic as to every detail. 

“The immortal Shakespeare intimated that we are a race 
of fools, and the inspired Paul assured us that we are with- 
out exception knaves. Even the divine Messiah was com- 
pelled to confess that his people, the ‘children of light,’ in 
comparison with the children of this Age, are ‘less wise.’ 
If, as King David suggested, men are often fools and all 
are liars, and if King James was known as ‘the most learned 
fool in Europe,’ is it surprising that the Bible made by the 
Jacobean committee is opén to the charges of being, in 
spots, a liar and a robber, a fool and a boor, a slanderer 
and blasphemer, a murderer and mutilator? Have we not 
shown it to be, at these points, a shame to civilization, a 
disgrace to Christianity, and a dishonor to its divine Au- 
thor? I hate to soil my lips by using the lying ‘Lord’ of the 
intervening versions, in place of the name ‘Jehovah,’ writ- 
ten by the divine Spirit. The A. V. is a back number, and 
people are slowly learning this fact. I feel sorry for you as 
an advocate of the A. V., a victim of a vice (AVitis, in sci- 
entific parlance) that should be strenuously avoided; for 


MISTAKES IN THE MAKING 33 


when intrenched it is almost ineradicable. You are a Jacob- 
olater, a devotee of a regal idol to whom you are so wedded 
that a hint of divorce would be beneath contempt, a separa- 
tion would be an inconceivable impossibility !’” 

At this onslaught Mrs. King threw up her hands in hope- 
less horror; and Mr. King remonstrated : 

“T fear that you forgot your gloves when you started out 
to handle us.”’ 

“Perhaps I did,” admitted Inglis; “but if I have spoken 
error, bear witness of the error; if truth, why should you 
be so indignant? Why not make acknowledgments and 
amends, and be thankful? Perhaps I am too severe, but even 
the Lord of Love was faithfully stern in his denunciations 
of the Pharisees.”’ 

The King’s were evidently so hard hit by these assaults 
that the Dodd’s and Inglis and Sun thought it best to dis- 
continue the argument, and they courteously withdrew. 


13. A Good Work? or a Better? 


Not long after this time the Inglis-Dodd nuptials were 
celebrated, and for their honeymoon Marvin and Marcia 
took a trip to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs, return- 
ing to the Western Hills. In.a letter to the King’s signed by 
the couple, Inglis wrote this conclusion to the discussion: 

“We know how you felt the charges which we made 
against your Bible. But we felt obliged to make them in 
the interests of truth. On the other hand, we wish you to 
remember that we fully recognize the lofty position occu- 
pied, and the marvelous influence wielded, for three cen- 
turies by the King James version. Of course the medieval] 
translators and publishers did the best they knew how, 
making all their blunders with the best intentions; so, in 
their quaint phrase, ‘the times of that ignorance God 
winked at.’ We shall always have their work on our shelf 
for reference, and shall continue to quote it as we do 
Shakspere; for we learned its Janguage at our mother’s 
knees. But we thank God that in-these days neither we nor 
the children of this generation are limited to that work in 
medieval English. And we are not so encrusted in a hard 
shell of conservatism that we turn our backs on modern 
works and on the blaze of light that shines from these new 
versions, thanks to the prolonged labors of multitudes of 
scholars. So, for practical every-day use, and for the 
stranger to our religion, we want a book in our mother 
tongue,.and the most accurate and polished translation 
possible. We cannot use a good book when we have at hand 
a better one. For we should fear the curse spoken by 


34 MISTAKES IN THE MAKING 


Jehovah thru His prophet Malachi on the deceiver who has 
in his flock a male and vows and sacrifices a female, cor- 
rupt and diseased (v. chap. 1:14, Fenton, etc.). When he 
can honor the Great King with a good acceptable offering, 
he presents an inferior one. Thus, I believe, Jehovah must 
condemn a Christian church or a Christian individual that 
undertakes to serve Him with a good Bible when a better 
cne has been provided. We can never make the best Bible, 
for that is ideal. Even if we had the original autographs, 
we could not make a perfect translation. But we can con- 
tinue to aim at it, each generation or century vieing with 
the preceding one. It took the King James version a half- 
century to supplant the Geneva Bible; and it may take, 
even in this rapid age of the twentieth century, as long for 
the Standard to replace the Authorised. No doubt scholars 
are laboring to obtain a better text, and they are endeavor- 
ing to produce a modern version that will surpass any yet 
made. Since, at the present time, we cannot combine all 
excellencies in a single work, we must glean from all or- 
chards in order to compound a fruit-nectar of the most 
exquisite flavor.” 


Inglis closed the letter with this bit of news: 


“We have explored the extensive grounds of the Summer 
Palace, which recall the days of imperial splendor; and 
have found on a commanding hill-top a ruined structure 
which we propose to restore; and we can spend there a pro- 
longed honeymoon. Thither we shall invite you to come and 
visit us, and celebrate our wedding anniversary. You shall 
bring with you Kin Jay, resplendent in rainbow raiment, 
his apparel of ribbons wonderfully pieced, and he shall 
serve a royal bird entire. The ‘mangled remains of Marcia’ 
shall be reunited in the handsome lady who will grace the 
head of the table; and we must all drink a toast to Restora- 
tion as unspeakably preferable to Ruin!’ 


Conclusion. 


Our subject is endless, but its discussion must end. We 
have selected only a few of the prominent Mishaps in the 
Making of the Book from a multitude of minor mishaps. 
We have the misfortune to inherit a Bible version so illus- 
trious that it blinds our eyes to the possibility and need of 
a better version; so that we cling to the Book in our great- 
great-grandmother tongue which, even tho that speech be 
better than ours, is not as appropriate to us as our mother 
tongue is. But the Bible territory is boundless, and the 


MISTAKES IN THE MAKING 35 


ed 


largest room in the world is the room for improvement. If 
one who has thought that the Bible cannot be improved has 
given a fair consideration to these mishaps as to the name 
of God, the character of the language, and the mode of 
arrangement of the text, must he not admit that such facts 
are a promising antidote to the poison that spreads the 
epidemic of AVitis! 


AN AFTERWORD TO THE CAUSTIC CRITIC! 
This effort will furnish a fine field for your wit, ridicule 
and sarcasm. Since you are in the overwhelming majority, 


you can crush a lone antagonist with the greatest ease! 


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